


Hot Lemon

by flawedamythyst



Series: Winterhawk Tumblr ficlets [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15444726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Bucky refuses to admit he's sick.





	Hot Lemon

The first sign was Bucky sneezing hard enough to jerk his controller and send his game character tumbling off a building.

Clint stared at him. “What the hell was that?”

“Nothing,” growled Bucky, glaring at the screen as his character respawned.

The next sign was a grimace and a hand pressed to his throat when he thought Clint was distracted with making lunch.

“Does your throat hurt?” asked Clint, because he was always paying attention to Bucky.

“Nope,” said Bucky, ripping his hand away.

Clint narrowed his eyes. “You sound kinda hoarse. Are you getting sick?”

“Super soldiers don’t get sick,” snapped Bucky, and then started coughing, something nasty rattling in his chest.

“Right,” said Clint sceptically, once Bucky was done. “How about you go back to bed and I bring this up to you?”

“I’m fine,” said Bucky, folding his arms.

Clint gave up for the moment, carefully not saying anything when Bucky had another coughing fit halfway through lunch, or about his voice getting rougher and rougher as the meal went on.

Steve came in halfway through and gave Bucky a concerned look, but he just shrugged when Clint raised an eyebrow at him.

As soon as lunch was done, Bucky disappeared in the direction of his bedroom and Clint tried not to feel slighted. Bucky had barely used the room for months, in favour of spending every night in Clint’s bed. Clint had actually been trying to work out how to ask him to move in officially, so having Bucky retreat there now felt like a slap in the face.

He let it go, though. If Bucky was sick, he deserved to be in his own space.

“He used to be like that when we were young as well,” said Steve. “He’d hover all over me if I was sick, but the minute he so much as sniffed, he disappeared until he was better.”

That should probably make Clint feel better, but he’d thought they were over hiding anything from each other.

A couple of hours later, he knocked on Bucky’s door with mug of hot lemon and some cough sweets he’d stolen from Bruce. Inside, he could hear more coughing.

“Hey, you okay?” he called.

“Fine!” called back Bucky. “Nothing wrong with me!”

Right, okay, the denial was still strong then.

“Can I come in?” he tried.

There was a pause, during which Bucky sneezed.

Clint couldn’t take much more of being shut out. “Please, Bucky,” he tried. “I’’ve got hot lemon for you. I had to ask Sam how to make it.”

Bucky sighed loudly enough for Clint to hear it through the door. “It’s barely even a cold,” he muttered. At least he was admitting to being ill now.

“JARVIS?” Clint asked, because he knew better than to take anyone on the team at their word when it came to their health.

“The symptoms that Sergeant Barnes is exhibiting do match that of a common cold,” agreed JARVIS, “however it appears to be a severe one.”

The door finally opened and Bucky appeared, leaning on the door frame. “Traitor,” he said tiredly.

He looked like shit. His skin was pale, his nose and eyes were red, and his voice sounded even rougher without the door in the way.

Clint pushed the mug at him. “Drink this,” he said, “then let me come in, wrap you in a blanket and cuddle you better. Don’t you know that’s what boyfriends are for?”

Bucky took the mug and tried the hot lemon with cautiousness that Clint would feel insulted by if he didn’t know it was sometimes justified when it came to things he’d made.

Apparently, Sam’s recipe was good though, because Bucky let out a quiet sigh, then curled forward to rest his head on Clint’s shoulder, wrapping the arm not holding the mug around Clint’s waist.

“That sounds so good,” he admitted. “Can we do it in our room, though?”

A glow expanded through Clint’s chest. _Their room._

“No problem,” he said, stroking a hand over Bucky’s hair. “No problem at all.”


End file.
